In both commercial and residential construction, it is the usual practice to "rough-in" both the electrical and plumbing systems before the interior walls, floor and ceiling areas are finished. The plastic pipe sections are joined together by various types of plastic fittings with the pipe sections being "stubbed-in" so that their free ends extend inwardly a substantial distance beyond the interior surfaces of the walls, floor and/or ceiling. After the interior surfaces of the building are finished, it is the common practice to connect various types of fixtures to the exposed pipe ends. The installation of fixtures on the exposed pipe ends requires that the pipe end be cut in a precisely square manner to connect the fixture thereto.
In some instances, such as when installing urinals and the like flush against a wall, it is necessary to cut the pipe end substantially flush with the finished interior of the building. In many instances, the cutting of the pipe end is carried out by a hack or hand saw, a saw with a rotary blade, or a reciprocating saw and these methods do not insure the formation of a square and smooth cut on the end of the pipe. Also, it is difficult to use such methods to cut the pipe end flush with the interior of the building, and impossible to cut the end of the pipe inside of the finished interior surface of the building, without cutting away a portion of the interior surface surrounding the pipe to be cut.
Also, after the plastic pipe plumbing system has been completely installed, and during the pressure testing procedure, it sometimes happens that one or more leaking joints will be detected. It is then necessary to cut the pipe adjacent opposite sides of the defective or leaking joint and remove the fitting and adhesively connect other pipe sections to a new fitting to repair the leaking joint. The removed fitting and the pieces of pipe attached thereto are discarded and wasted. In order to eliminate discarding the fitting in a leaking joint, some plumbers cut the plastic pipe adjacent the fitting and then form a series of cuts around the section of plastic pipe inside of the fitting and use a small chisel to painstakingly remove the cut pieces of the pipe therefrom. However, in many instances this practice results in breaking or otherwise damaging the bell of the fitting to the extent that it is not possible to glue or weld a new pipe section into the fitting to provide a leak-free joint.
Others have recognized the inherent problems in cutting roughed-in pipes to precise lengths and repairing leaking joints, as carried out by the methods pointed out above. Various devices have been devised in an attempt to overcome these problems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,466,185 discloses an adjustable pipe length cutter provided with rotating cutters which are maintained in position in the interior of the plastic pipe and are expanded as they are rotated so that the wall of the plastic pipe will be cut from the inside to the outside. Since the cutting operation takes place from the inside to the outside of the pipe, it is difficult to properly adjust the inner position of the expanding cutters to precisely cut the pipe to the desired length. Also, it is not possible to observe the cutting operation because it takes place on the interior of the pipe.
Devices have also been proposed for reaming out and removing plastic pipe sections from plastic pipe fittings. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,222 discloses a device which is adapted to be rotated by a drill or the like and which includes radially extending cutter blades with a complicated mechanism for imparting outward radial movement to the blades during rotation of the device for cutting away the pipe section from the inside of the pipe. The device of this patent also includes a nonrotating gripping device for retaining the pipe fitting in a fixed position while the cutting blades are rotating on the inside of the pipe section to remove the same therefrom.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,593, assigned to the same assignee as the present application, discloses a plastic pipe reamer having rotating cutting blades for engaging and cutting or shaving away the end of a pipe section positioned in a fitting. In this device a pilot member is supported for resilient inward movement on the inside of the bit supporting the cutter blades so that the pilot member may be forced to slide up into the bit member when removing a pipe section from an elbow-type fitting. The sliding pilot arrangement of the device of this patent may become inoperative if it is clogged with dirt, grit, plastic chips and the like during use, and will, therefore, be inoperative.